GAYLORD - More than 100,000 pieces of mail will leave the U.S. Posta Service in Gaylord tonight. And every piece will advertise Alpenfest.

To get more involved in promoting the annual Gaylord festival, workers at the U.S. Postal Service have been working behind the scenes to get a special cancellation stamp that reads "ALPENFEST 3RD WEEK IN JULY" in black print.

The cancellation is the stamp that is printed over the regular postage stamp to show it has been used. The cancellation is administered by a machine through which the mail is sorted.

While the cancellation stamp may not look that impressive, the sheer volume of people it will reach is. Because Gaylord is a regional post office site, all of the mail in northern Michigan passes through its doors and is canceled. The geographical coverage of the post office spans as far north as Sault St. Marie, south to Grayling, as far east as Alpena and west to Petoskey.

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In other words, any letter from a ZIP code in northern Michigan beginning with "497" will receive the Alpenfest cancellation. This means that Alpenfest will be advertised all across the United States, or possibly even across the world.

"If you mail a letter to California, it's going to say 'Alpenfest,'" said John Marcotte, president of the Local American Postal Workers Union, which approached Postmaster Daniel Windsor with the idea for an Alpenfest cancellation. "Everywhere the letters go, everybody is going to know Alpenfest is the third week in July."

The wording on the cancellation is intentionally generic enough so it can be used year after year. The post office began using it Wednesday and will continue through the end of Alpenfest.

In addition to the machine cancellation, the post office also will offer a cancellation, stamped by hand. More attractive than the machine cancellation, this cancellation will be a stamp of the Alpenfest pin.

Postal workers will staff an Alpenfest booth at which people may have envelopes or postcards stamped free of charge. Workers also will sell postcards and stamps at the booth.

And, Alpenfest will be the one time during the year when Gaylord residents and visitors will see their postal workers out of uniform on the job. Those staffing the booth will sport Alpenfest garb.

The Alpenfest cancellations are one of the many unique ways local businesses and industries support the festival and make it a success, said Bob Kasprzak, executive director of the Gaylord/Otsego County Chamber of Commerce. The impact of the postal cancellation is difficult to predict.

"Will it bring in 10 new people or a thousand new people? It is impossible to determine that," he said.

Kasprzak added that local people may obtain a hand cancellation as a special souvenir. Or, they may take advantage of the opportunity to send a letter to friends and relatives in an Alpenfest-specific envelope.

Marcotte and Windsor said each time the post office offers a special hand cancellation, it receives about 1,000 special requests for the cancellation from people who collect stamps. The Alpenfest cancellation will be published in the Postal Bulletin and by stamp clubs, which inform stamp collectors of special cancellations.

"We'll get requests from all over the world for that (Alpenfest cancellation)," Windsor said.

"There may be people who come to the event just to get the hand cancellation," Marcotte added.

Other special cancellations the post office has done in the past include one commemorating veterans who have earned a Purple Heart, the Korean War, and the move of the post office to its new location.

The motivation behind orchestrating the Alpenfest cancellation was a desire to give back to the community, Marcotte said. And Alpenfest is a perfect time to do just that.

"We get a lot out of this community and we wanted to give back," Marcotte said. "I just think we have a really good relationship up here (with the community)."

The Gaylord post office employs more than 120 people, many of whom are involved in Alpenfest in some way, Windsor said.